A few apt quotes

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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These are mostly for the pro-war Americans amongst us, the rest of us call it common sense;

“A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both”.

– President Abraham Lincoln

“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

– George Orwell

“Wise men talk because they have something to say. Fools talk because they have to say something”.

– Plato
‘rummy’?

“Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President.”

– President Theodore Roosevelt

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Here are some more:

“This war is an act of self-defense, to be sure, but it is also an act of humanity.” Donald Rumsfeld, March 25.

“Baghdad might give us the time-line for this whole war - and whether we'll wind up looking in vain for 'the light at the end of the tunnel’.” Tim Lomperis, political analyst and former Army intelligence officer, referring to the phrase frequently invoked by US officials during the Vietnam War.

"Umm Qasr is a city similar to Southampton," UK Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon. "He's either never been to Southampton, or he's never been to Umm Qasr," British squaddie patrolling Umm Qasr. Another soldier added: "There's no beer, no prostitutes and people are shooting at us. It's more like Portsmouth". (Sky News) :D

“Plainly, our bombs are displaying a strategic solicitude that seems beyond the capacities and inclinations of the men who run our nation.” Washington Post Editorial.

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Re: A few apt quotes

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Thap: *

"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President."

-- President Theodore Roosevelt
[/QUOTE]

and people still think that Iraqis are fighting for Saddam.

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Re: Re: A few apt quotes

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by MiniMe: *

and people still think that Iraqis are fighting for Saddam.
[/QUOTE]

The best part is: Finally Rumsy and Co have admitted that there even "civilians" fighting along the fayadeens and iraqi army but using the lame excuse that those fayadeens are putting guns on their head and pressurizing them to pick up the guns and fight.
Pathetic!

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"The liberal media and many of the pundits said I was stupid... They misunderestimated me."
-- George W. Bush - Bentonville, Ark., Nov. 6, 2000

Oderint dum metuant.
[Let them hate as long as they fear.]
-- Supposedly a favorite of Caligula

"Atque ubi solitudinum faciunt pacem apellant."
[Where they make a wilderness they call it peace.]
-- Calgacus quoted in Tacitus' Agricola

"Those who are willing to trade freedom for security deserve neither freedom nor security."
-- Benjamin Franklin

"How loth were we to give up our pious belief in ghosts and witches, because we liked to persecute the one, and frighten ourselves to death with the other!"
-- William Hazlitt, On the Pleasure of Hating

"The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them."
-- George Orwell

"And thus a ready mode is provided, by which whoever is on the strongest side may dogmatize at his ease, and instead of proving his propositions, may rail at all who deny them, as bereft of 'the vision and the faculty divine', or blinded to its plainest revelations by a corrupt heart."
-- John Stewart Mill

"What is morality in any given time or place? It is what the majority then and there happen to like, and immorality is what they dislike."
-- Alfred North Whitehead, Dialogues

"We find frequent instances in literature, where hatred supplies the place of genius, and where small talents appear important, by coming forward as organs of a party. Thus too, in life, we find a multitude of persons, who have not character enough to stand alone; these in the same way attach themselves to a party, by which they feel themselves strengthened, and can at last make some figure."
-- Goethe

"A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side."
-- Aristotle, Politics

"Many people would sooner die than think. In fact they do."
-- Bertrand Russell

"Everybody thinks himself so well supplied with common sense that even those most difficult to please... never desire more of it than they already have."
-- Descartes

"Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish."
-- Euripides

"What if the hokey pokey is what it's all about?"

And also:

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You have good taste, Spoon. i like these quotes in particular:

[QUOTE]
Originally posted by spoon: *
"Atque ubi solitudinum faciunt pacem apellant."
[Where they make a wilderness they call it peace.]
-- Calgacus quoted in Tacitus' *Agricola

"The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them."
-- George Orwell

"And thus a ready mode is provided, by which whoever is on the strongest side may dogmatize at his ease, and instead of proving his propositions, may rail at all who deny them, as bereft of 'the vision and the faculty divine', or blinded to its plainest revelations by a corrupt heart."
-- John Stewart Mill

"What is morality in any given time or place? It is what the majority then and there happen to like, and immorality is what they dislike."
-- Alfred North Whitehead, Dialogues

"We find frequent instances in literature, where hatred supplies the place of genius, and where small talents appear important, by coming forward as organs of a party. Thus too, in life, we find a multitude of persons, who have not character enough to stand alone; these in the same way attach themselves to a party, by which they feel themselves strengthened, and can at last make some figure."
-- Goethe

"Many people would sooner die than think. In fact they do."
-- Bertrand Russell
[/QUOTE]

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Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."

"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."

"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

-- Herman Goering as related to Gustave Gilbert at the Nuremberg trials, from the book Nuremberg Diary.

This is so true.. and chilling..

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^ part of the CIA doctrine since the Cuban revolution.

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Thank you.. thank you.. :cool:
Here are a whole bunch more:

“There is nothing so easy but that it becomes difficult when you do it reluctantly.”
– Publius Terentius Afer

“Without knowledge of history, the way things are now seems inevitable.”
– Walter J. Ong, Orality & Literacy

“Oh how sweet it is to hear one’s own convictions from another’s lips.”
– Goethe

“The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.”
– Aristotle

“It is a farce to call any being virtuous whose virtues do not result from the exercise of its own reason.”
– Mary Wollstonecraft

“It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgement. Insensibly, one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts.”
– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as Sherlock Holmes, A Study in Scarlet

“Presenting anecdotal evidence as proof is saying, ‘I played Russian roulette and lived, so it must be safe.’”

“Truth never damages a cause that is just.”
– Gandhi

“The only force I fear more than human irrationality is irrationality armed with passion.”
– Leo Rosteni

“Force is all-conquering, but its victories are short-lived.”
– Abraham Lincoln

“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
– Voltaire

“Nothing sways the stupid more than arguments they can’t understand.”
– Cardinal de Retz

“No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.”

“The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them.”
– Albert Einstein

“A wise man does not try to hurry history. Many wars have been avoided by patience, and many have been precipitated by reckless haste.”
– Adlai Stevenson

“Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.”
– Frederick Douglass

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.”
– Nietzsche

“For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.”
– H. L. Mencken

“A single death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic.”
– Stalin

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** “The best army does not always win” **
quote from Sun Tzu’s 2,000-year-old Chinese classic, The Art of War.

** The ultimate war is one you win without fighting **
Sun Tzu

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More interesting quotations. :k: :k: Thank you Spoon and Abdali.
i think it was Richard Nixon who stated once “We won the war, but lost the peace.” Here are some of my favs.:

“Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won.”
– Duke of Wellington

“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”
– Voltaire

“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.”
– Voltaire

“Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true.”
– Demosthenes

“What thou meanest by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, whilst thou who dost it with a great fleet art styled emperor.”
– St. Augustine

“War is God’s way of teaching [people] geography.”
– Ambrose Bierce

“Beware the leader who bangs the drum of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor. For patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and patriotism, will offer up all of their rights to the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Julius Caesar.”
– Julius Caesar

“CNN is one of the participants in the war. I have a fantasy where Ted Turner is elected president but refuses because he doesn’t want to give up power.”
– Arthur C. Clarke

“When a whole nation is roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and the purity of its heart.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“You can bomb the world into pieces, but you can’t bomb it into peace.”
– Michael Franti

“Until the lions have their historians, tales of hunting will always glorify the hunter.”
– African Proverb

“Warrior, heed this. When you battle with demons, aim not at their hearts.”
– Andrew Vachss

“If you do not like the image in the mirror do not break the mirror, break your face”
– Old Persian proverb

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"Those that do..do...those that can't sit around in a circle jerk blaming everyone else"

CH 2001

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"Those well experienced in circle-jerking prescribe it often"

  • Thap 2003
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^ :hehe: absolutely thap!!!

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I was bored the other day so I dug up some more...

"There is a point beyond which even justice becomes unjust."
-- Sophocles

"Never cut what you can untie."
-- Joseph Joubert

"The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."
-- Louis Brandeis

"The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment."
-- Robert Hutchins

"If the gods listened to the prayers of men, all humankind would quickly perish since they constantly pray for many evils to befall one another."
-- Epicurus

"Nothing contributes so much to tranquilizing the mind as a steady purpose - a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye."
-- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

"The first sign of corruption in a society that is still alive is that the end justifies the means."
-- Georges Bernanos

"The mob is man voluntarily descending to the nature of the beast. Its fit hour of activity is night. Its actions are insane, like its whole constitution. It persecutes a principle; it would whip a right; it would tar and feather justice, by inflicting fire and outrage upon the houses and persons of those who have these."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"When a person can no longer laugh at himself, it is time for others to laugh at him."
-- Thomas Szasz

"The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet."
-- Aristotle

"The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress."
-- Joseph Joubert

"Will is stronger than fact: it can mold and overcome fact."
-- H.G. Wells

"The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook."
-- William James

"Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them. "
-- Adlai Stevenson

"Speech is conveniently located midway between thought and action, where it often substitutes for both."
-- John Andrew Holmes